SportsKenya: New Pay TV Channel, now what have we got here ?

Thursday, 7 June 2007

New Pay TV Channel, now what have we got here ?

After enjoying a largely monopolistic market in Africa, MultiChoice's DSTv- which includes among others SuperSport finally have some competition that they ought to start thinking about. Let’s just it’s been a smooth number of years ( it’s that short, seems like we’ve had satellite TV for the longest time ever!)
GTV – a company developed and supported by Gateway Broadcast Services has secured a 3-year deal to broadcast the UK Barclays Premier League and Italian Serie A. This will be carried on its sports channel 'G Sports' (...seems they be pun intending already!)This was after the company did a survey on the preferences of potential consumers, and found these to be the appealing and sought after.
It will hope to launch in June 30th 2007 in Kenya.
The station will offer 16-channel service including;
- dedicated football channel showing 8 UK premiership games per week,
- 6 Italian Serie A games every weekend,
-Top games influencing the top of the table, relegation and European competitions qualification.
- African soccer both localised and international
There will also be locally produced commentary and broad channel bouquet as part of the offering.The targeted group is people with incomes in the KShs.65000 (p.m.) and the package will cost around KShs.1400($20) entry price. The company will initially based in East Africa before expanding to the rest of Sub-Saharan countries such as Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi.It will in future hope to appeal to the French and Portuguese speaking countries.
GTV in addition will have another channel 'G Prime' for entertainment and movies. According to Mr. Julian McIntyre-the founder and president,

the African market has been artificially constrained by monopoly pricing and non-relevant content.

Last year the company issued high-yielding bonds worth $100 million to refinance debt and raise funds for expansion. It also hopes to offer pay TV on cell phones hopefully within the next 5 years.
This will be in a market that is forecasted to be worth $3 billion by 2015 with the basic TV market growing at 10% per annum. In Africa where we have the least Pay TV penetration rate at less than 1 % , Kenya has around 23000 households out of an estimated population of 2.2 million households.

Logo courtesy of www.dstv.co.za
Multichoice which is owned by Naspers has some food for thought over the June-August break to think of a more competitive package to be able to counter the company that is GTV. Already a family package offering 25 channels at a monthly price of KShs. 1350 (US$ 19).It also has around 1.34 million subscribers in 50 countries hence it's already leading the market.
It will be interesting to see what offering the 2 companies will engage in for the coming months. There will be price reductions and offers running left, right and centre as they seek to outdo each other. This will eventually (I hope) mean more affordable Pay TV with relevant content. Can’t wait for the 2007-2008 English Premier League season !
Credits to;
www.bizcommunity.com (article by Carole Kimutai of SOKONI),
www.nationaudio.com,and
www.ioltechnology.com

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Profile of a Kenyan Sports Personality

This is a look at a Kenyan personality who may have influenced and continues to affect sports in Kenya and inspires all and sundry in sports. It is our hope that you shall reflect on this, take a moment to appreciate the sacrifices and efforts these heroes made. We do take a bow and wave our hats as we cheer true Kenyan patriots in sport!

This one takes a different twist. Having seen individuals grace this column, we have sought to recognize a team of individuals who did some exemplary work and set what has been an unbeatable national and indeed continental effort.

Kenya has never been a major power in shorter races 400m downwards. Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, this was a different script especially with the more exciting relay races. It is in 1968 when Kenya’s dominance came into play and with it a retinue of athletes who would become legends of their era.

The 4x400m races are usually the climax in the athletics calendar of events and in Mexico ’68, Kenya’s team including Charles Asati, Naftali Bon, Munyoro Nyamau and Daniel Rudisha ( the latter being the father to David Rudisha - current World and African champion in 800m) had other ideas coming 2^nd to USA.

In 1972, the 4 x 400m team was tweaked a bit and the final race was run by Charles Asati, Munyoro Nyamau, Robert Ouko and Julius Sang blazing the track to come up with the only other Gold medal from the Munich Games. But for this unprecedented move and none that has been done before by any other African nation, we salute our compatriots making them the Kenyan sprint legends!

Know your Sport

Swimming

Recently at some social setting we were engaged in a club quiz and one of the questions was about swimming. This sought to know which stroke was not among the competitive ones till 1956. One of our team-mates (we were 6 said that it was back-stroke while I argued it was butterfly, and the majority thought the former ….guess we should have stuck with my answer though!)

All the same, this sport has become one of the most competitive sports in any major sporting extravaganza in the form of the All-Africa Games, Commonwealth or indeed the Olympic Games. Kenya has lately featured in this very involving and energy-sapping sport. Thanks to the exploits of the Dunford brothers who have shone the spotlight on the country away from traditional sports in athletics, football, boxing and rugby. But what do you understand from the sport? Here’s a brief of it from different sources;

According to Wikipedia, swimming is based on the human act of swimming, that is, locomotion in water by self propulsion, with the goal of completing a given distance in the shortest amount of time. Swimming is distinguished from other aquatic sports (such as diving, synchronized swimming, and water polo) that involve swimming but the goal is neither speed nor endurance.

Competitive swimming consists of four strokes: butterfly, breaststroke, freestyle (or front crawl), and backstroke. When all four strokes are done during a race, it is called medley swimming (otherwise known as the individual medley, or I.M.). It is governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation Amateur (FINA).

The goal of competitive swimming is usually to have the fastest time to complete a given distance. Competitive swimming became popular in the nineteenth century. Swimming is an event at the Summer Olympic Games, where male and female athletes compete in 13 of the recognized events each. Olympic events are held in a 50 meter pool (long course).

There are 36 officially recognized individual swimming events – 18 male events and 18 female events; however the International Olympic Committee only recognizes 34 of them – 17 male and 17 female. Most swimming sport events are held in special competition swimming pools, which are either long course pools such as those used in the Olympic Games (50 m) or short course pools such as those used in the FINA World Swimming Championships (25 m) (25 yards or 25 m). Competition pools have starting blocks from which the competitor can dive in, and possibly also touch-sensitive pads to electronically record the swimming time of each competitor.

In most competitions, the competitors are required to wear swimwear/swimsuits to adequately cover their bodies for the dip. However some suits have created controversies which have seen FINA coming up with standards to adhere to ensure competitors do not have undue advantage over each other.

The sport can also be pursued for personal fitness and is considered by fitness enthusiasts as one of the few that does an all-round job body of keeping the body in shape. It also requires healthy diets and rehydration (yes even if your body’s dipped in water)! Famous names in the sport include Mark Spitz – 7-gold medals winner 1972 Olympics and Michael Phelps – 8 gold medals - Beijing 2008.
For more info, check www.fina.org

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Thursday, 7 June 2007

New Pay TV Channel, now what have we got here ?

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